E3 Quick Play: Fruit Ninja Kinect

The mobile game has made it to the big screen, but is it just as much fun? We tracked down the new Kinect game at E3 in Los Angeles to find out more. Is it just about slicing and dicing your way through fruit or is there something more to the action now that the Kinect sensor has been used. Read on to find out.

Name

Fruit Ninja Kinect

What platform is it on?

Xbox 360

When's it due out?

TBA

What other game is it like?

Fruit Ninja on your phone

Does it use any new tech like 3D, PlayStation Move, or Kinect for Xbox 360?

Yep - Kinect

The pitch

You are the ninja! The worldwide gaming phenomenon Fruit Ninja has now arrived for Kinect! Your arms are now blades, and the epic battle against the world’s most delicious produce is just beginning. Fruit Ninja Kinect is an amazing evolution of the slice-em-up genre created by Halfbrick, utilising next-gen power for the juiciest combat ever!

The storyline

There isn’t one, you’re cutting fruit

Trailers, demoes, and video

Our first impressions

Yep, the game that’s had you swiping your fingers across your smartphone, in order to slice and dice your way through fruit is now available for the Kinect and Xbox 360. Throwing your fine motor skills out the window, gross motor are going to be the key if you're going to slice the fruit into a pulpy mess. All from the comfort of your living room, while at the same time looking like an idiot.

Perfect.

Trouble is to do this we had to be idiots ourselves (all for you dear reader). While the game isn’t the latest Tomb Raider it is fun to play and easy to grasp - we can see you persuading grandma into playing this on Christmas Day and then laughing with the rest of the family at just how good she is at cutting up watermelons.

With Classic, Zen and the frenetic Arcade Mode, Fruit Ninja Kinect includes all the action you know and love, and there’s a Party Mode too allowing multiple players to be able to play at the same time.

Our time was brief - like 5 minutes brief - and that's not because we were moved on by Microsoft when we played it, but because that’s the time it took for us to have our fill of the game.

Five minutes of game time might be enough to keep you entertained two stops on the underground, but in the living room you’ll probably tire quickly.

Good execution, we just aren’t sure it's got sticking power.

Please note

The E3 games convention is a fantastic chance to see the latest games due out over the coming year, as well as, letting us get a glimpse into what are going to be the big titles and the ones to avoid like the plague.

The big problem however is that for most of the titles that glimpse is, well, just that. At the show you'll get to play a level here or a multiplayer map there or even have a product manager walk you through a specific level.

So with that in mind we present you with our Quick Play.

What we've done is broken down the key facts you need to know and then given you our first impressions based on around 15 minutes of gaming. For us that 15 minutes isn't enough to do a review or even a First Look review. How can you rate a game that offers over 30 hours of gaming on just 15 minutes of play? However, it should hopefully give you an idea, a feeling, a notion, of what to expect come launch day.